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Services held for four slain Friends, kin mourn

The Denver Post

Posted:
02/19/2013 12:01:00 AM MST

Updated:
02/21/2013 02:09:14 PM MST

Mel Kohlberg greets one of the hundreds of mourners at a service for his wife, Margaret, Dec. 19, 1993. Margaret Kohlberg was killed during a robbery at an Aurora Chuck E Cheese. (Denver Post file photo)

Mary McNally has seen far too much about what she calls the "war that hasn't been declared."

It took the life of her niece, Colleen Rose O'Connor, and three other people who were working the night shift at an Aurora pizza parlor. It seemed an unlikely setting for murder. The very name of the place - Chuck E Cheese's - makes little kids smile. And the only trembling there is supposed to come from toddlers looking forward to birthday parties, pepperoni pizza, cake and ice cream.

O'Connor and the others were closing up shop last Tuesday night when a gunman arrived and exploded in a rampage. He killed four people, wounded a fifth and changed thousands of lives with every squeeze of the trigger. A former employee of the pizza parlor, allegedly disgruntled over his firing, was arrested as the suspect.

He sat in jail yesterday as separate funeral and memorial services were held for the four victims.

At one service, McNally remembered her niece as a "bright, burning, exciting kind of person." Someone extinguished her life at 17 - much too early for anyone to understand or explain. McNally didn't try. But she did have a three-word message. "Stop the madness," she said.

No "pious platitudes"

A racially mixed audience of 700 attended O'Connor's funeral at Good Shepherd Catholic Church, 2626 E. 7th Ave., where McNally made a personal pledge. She said she would let every "single, solitary child I see know how precious and absolutely irreplaceable they are. If we do that maybe it will be more difficult for somebody to pull a trigger."

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Clutching Roscoe, a well-worn teddy bear her niece had enjoyed since childhood, McNally reviewed the teen's life and said, "Colleen, we will all miss you. Something will be terribly wrong at family gatherings. We will miss your voice when we gather around the piano to sing and when you're not there to crack a joke at just the right time."

To the right of the casket, on the first row of the packed church, were O'Connor's mother, Jodie McNally-Damore; McNally-Damore's husband, Greg; and her son, Sean. Across the aisle was Colleen's father, Dennis O'Connor.

Near the end of the exchange of peace, a time when worshipers greet each other, father and stepfather reached across the casket and shook hands.

The Rev. Marcian O'Meara, Good Shepherd pastor, said he had no "pious platitudes" and no answer to the violence. But Colleen, who was baptized at Good Shepherd, "is now with God, and she understands."

He prayed that the angels would "lead her to paradise." To the crowd, he said, "some of you may be angry at God. That's OK. That's a prayer and means you are talking to him. Pray for the people who are consumed with anger.

"God did not make people to lead bitter, angry lives full of hatred. We have to take a stronger stand for peace and first make certain there is no violence in our own hearts."

More than 100 students from Eaglecrest High School, where Colleen was a senior, attended the two-hour service. Many arrived red-eyed and continued to cry.

"I just talked to her the day before," said a stunned Jason Garvin. "I liked her. She was outspoken and friendly. She was anxious to get through school and go to college to make her mom proud of her."

Chilling words

Only last July, in a letter to a friend in Utah, Sylvia Kathlene Crowell wrote cheerfully of life. But the same letter also contained an oddly bleak passage.

"Just be happy that you don't live here," Crowell, 19, wrote to Heather Humpherys. "That's right. So many kids with guns, tons of people dying. I haven't personally known anyone who has died yet, but I always know someone who did know them."

No one could have predicted that, within six months, Crowell would lie in a white casket adorned with pink flowers as the chilling words she'd written were read to 800 mourners. All of them were struggling to accept that a gun had found her, too. Yet even the tragedy of Crowell's death could not darken every moment. Many who attended her funeral service at the Aurora Hills Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chuckled over fond memories of her.

"Sylvia was like a magnet," said Laura Pierce, whose father was Crowell's bishop. In high school, "friends would come and cut into Sylvia's studying and sleeping time. She would then stay up and study and read her scriptures and get to bed very late, even when she had seminary" at 6 a.m.

The Gateway High School graduate was a devout Mormon, a church choir member and president of the church youth group. Carole Richins, a friend and fellow employee who had left the restaurant about 15 minutes before the shootings, struggled to choke back tears as she spoke.

She boasted of the pair's voracious appetites. "We could eat anyone under the table." She remembered her friend's favorite movie was a Disney film, "Beauty and the Beast." And she described how Sylvia had taught Richins how to dance: "She kept the faith."

"People used to make fun of us because we used to always say we loved each other. I'm just so glad I said that to her that night," Richins said.

Among those listening to Richins were about 20 youths in the back of the church. All wore black T-shirts. Many carried a red rose. The left breast of each T-shirt was imprinted with a red heart with a red rose; on the back was a printed message: "In Memory of Sylvia - Gone But Never Forgotten."

Nearby, another man stood dressed in a dark suit. A shiny badge was pinned to his chest.

Mike Stiers, the Aurora Police Department's chief of investigations, took it all in. Then he quietly slipped away.

"An empty space"

Benjamin Grant was so full of life, and everybody knew it. A caring son and brother, loving boyfriend, determined wrestler, devout friend and sometimes ornery student - that's the kid family and friends remembered yesterday.

More than 750 people gathered at Smoky Hill High School, where 17-year-old Ben was a junior. His mother used the service to call for an end to the "stupid violence."

"We hope and pray that maybe through Ben's death some of the violence will stop," said Sandy Stake, her husband, Matthew, by her side. "We hope and pray that Ben's death will not be in vain..."

She begged teary-eyed youngsters whose chins quivered as they listened to join the fight against weapons, especially guns. "I want you to work towards a peaceful solution to the violence ... Tell an adult when a teenager is carrying a gun. If you see something like that, tell somebody, just tell somebody."

A leather soccer ball, a framed picture of Grant and his wrestling togs - sleek, evergreen sweatsuit, shoes and headgear - adorned a table. Family members said Ben loved sports, especially wrestling.

His relatives conducted the memorial service. They invited friends and teachers to the stage to recite poems, sing songs or simply tell tales about Ben.

One poem by friend Kesha Rencher said in part:

"A funny, talented and special person as he,

has left us all to rest in peace.

An innocent child, so beautiful, so strong,

was once with us, but now is gone.

The death has left an empty space in many hearts."

Tiffany Hawks, his 14-year-old half-sister, said her life won't be the same without Ben.

"Not only was he my big brother, he was my best friend in the whole wide world," she said. "It's going to be hard without him. ... Seeing that empty space in his room isn't going to be easy."

She began to get upset thinking about the suspect in the killings. Family members comforted her and helped her off the stage.

Carrie Lau, Grant's girlfriend of 2 1/2 years, sees a void in her life as big as Tiffany's.

"He was my true love, my only love," she said. "We can no longer see his smile or enjoy the love he expressed to all of us."

"Worth every second"

Mel Kohlberg wanted to tell his "donkey story" during the memorial service for his wife, Margaret, at Parker Funeral Home.

But Kohlberg said the anecdote, which sprang from what happened to him during his early-morning jog yesterday, might come across as "somewhat irreverent" to many of the 135 mourners who showed up to honor Marge's memory. So he checked himself, but he still thought his Marge would have liked the story.

Kohlberg's sunrise run near his Parker home was a way for him to "get clear" about his day, particularly on how he was going to cope with the service. As he ran, he spotted a donkey.

"As I jogged closer to the donkey, I started greeting him," Kohlberg recounted after the service. "Then, I could have sworn I heard the donkey say this: 'Go Broncos.' One of many ironies of the day was the football team representing Marge's original home (the Chicago Bears) was playing her adopted home. She was a big Broncos fan."

What Kohlberg did tell friends and neighbors is that his 17 years of marriage to Marge were "worth every second of it." He even joked about the couple falling in love "instantly."

"OK, it took two weeks," he said. Kohlberg said he was overwhelmed by the number of people from "all areas of our lives" who showed up to offer their support.

"A lot of people have trouble expressing their feelings," he said. "So, they say, 'If there's anything we can do for you.' And then I told them something like, 'You are doing all I could ever hope for just by being here giving me your love and being supportive.'"

About 15 teenage Chuck E Cheese employees showed up at Kohlberg's home after the service to comfort him and the two daughters Marge left behind.

"I am driven by my wife's memory," he said. "My mission is to do what I know is right and do what I strongly believe that my wife believes is right."

He has another hope. "Let it be a comfort to know that the physical evidence supports our hope she had no idea of what was taking place, and she died instantly."

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